John Cook - CEO Tara Music

"I
suppose you could say I've achieved what I set out to achieve" says
John Cook when asked to summarise the tale of Tara in a recent interview
with Colin Harper "Quiet simply, there are some high quality albums
which will stand the test of time - and that's already proved itself.
I like to push musical boundaries and I like to think we've produced material
of Cultural merit - as well as great musical merit. I don't think there's
an easy option - if we knew what the punters wanted we'd all be at it,
that's the easy option! But in the long term a quality product will always
last the course and that's what we've done - we've created our own niche
and it is all about quality."

Which is just as well, because nobody could accuse Tara
of quantity. But who is John Cook? Known in the record industry as the
inscrutable, dobro-playing accountant, with a steady line in dry wit and
nerves of steel. John has single-handedly built up the label from its
origins as a modest offshoot of a Dublin record shop nearly 30 years ago.
It's an ironclad outlet for quietly groundbreaking music based on the
Irish tradition and has become a benchmark to rivals in standards of packaging,
production and recording ever since. As for John himself, most of the
artists he has worked with over the years see him with a mixture of deference
and affection, as 'the enigma'.

A modest individual, John has chiseled out enduring and
marketability for his artists with a knife-edge balance of vision, prudence
and acumen. Not a man given to reckless enthusiasm or rash expenditure,
he does occasionally confound expectations with the odd flight of fancy
- like, signing a Limerick based pop band by the name of Treehouse
Diner because he liked them and only afterwards worrying about how
to market such an item. But upon such pragmatism has Tara's roster of
world-class acts been built.

Born in Scotland, educated in England and Ireland, John
worked in the hotel business as an internal auditor until the late-sixties
when he combined his passions for music and accountancy and opened a record
shop in the Dublin suburb of Rathfarnham. John later sold-out to a chain
of stores which had just changed its name to Golden Discs, it was formerly
known as Tara Records. And here the tale begins.

"Tara had existed at the retail end" says John,
"but not as a label. It was set up by Jack Fitzgerald. He had one
store on Tara Street in Dublin specialising in American imports. I knew
Jack all those years I was in the hotel business, for no other reason
than I was a particularly good customer, and after I sold him the store
I started doing odd bits of administration work for him. Around this time
there was an import album - from England this time - called
Prosperous by a young Irish Singer 'Christy Moore', at that stage
a lowly cult figure, traveling around the British folk clubs. Christy
had released a previous album in England which sank without trace, but
this one was where the great 1970's shift in Irish music began. The four
individuals who went on to form Planxty, Andy Irvine, Liam O'Flynn, Donal
Lunny and Christy himself - were on that album and to satiate demand from
his customers Jack Fitzgerald bought the rights to this album and released
it on a label of convenience entitled Tara Records".

There was quiet a gap between that album coming out and
anything further being released. When Planxty reformed in 1978 it was
with Tara that they signed and it was at this point that Tara started
their record label in earnest. Quality, big-budget product followed at
a steady rate, there were two albums from Planxty After
The Break and The Woman I Loved
So Well, two solo albums from Christy Moore The
Iron Behind the Velvet and Live
In Dublin as well as two albums from the Irish language group 'Clannad'
and the first three albums from a promising new act called Stockton's
Wing. All four acts are now legendary names in Irish music. It has
been a trademark of John's modest empire that acts have left his label
to bigger and better things - and several have returned, Stockton's Wing
being a prime example.

Davy Spillane, bringing Irish pipes into a jazz fusion setting
and more recently the esoteric and potentially lucrative new-age / film
soundtrack area, built up his reputation with Tara before moving on amicably
to a major deal - in his case Sony. Clannad set the trend in 1981, after
four albums with various labels during the 70's and then two with Tara,
using the bigger budgets available courtesy of Cook's 'maximise quality'
philosophy to begin experimenting with studio techniques that led to the
breakthrough UK hit single Theme From Harry's Game and subsequent
international success. That success was soon mirrored elsewhere Clannad
member Enya, whose sole recordings with the band, on 1981's Fuaim
were bankrolled by John. In the Clannad case, John's involvement in their
leap to the bigger league via RCA, meant he was in a position to reap
his own modest recompense - in effect, the Irish rights to several subsequent
Clannad albums on RCA and of course the rights to continue marketing and
licensing his label's own Clannad product around the world.

In the late seventies, John took another big step with Tara
when he recorded Shaun Davey's The Brendan
Voyage a ground breaking album which featured Liam O'Flynn on uilleann
pipes and a full orchestra. "I agonised for many days over that
album" says John"but of course I don't regret it. It's still
a great album". The Brendan Voyage launched Shaun
Davey (who had previously worked mainly doing advertising jingles)
as a contemporary orchestral composer of international standard and led
to further commissions for work in a similar vein, several of which -
The Pilgrim, Granuaile
and The Relief of Derry Symphony, have
been released on Tara. Most of Shaun's works feature the truly exceptional
vocalist Rita Connolly and the universally
recognised master of Irish piping Liam O'Flynn
- both of whom have also recorded solo albums for Tara under Shaun's supervision
as producer.

John's policy of 'Less is More', putting quality before
quantity and aiming for only two or three recordings per year, has paid
off. Almost none of the Tara catalogue has been deleted. In fact, as digital
technology has become available in recent years, much of the Tara catalogue
has been re mastered or even (in the case of Shaun Davey's magnum opus
'The Pilgrim) re-recorded for CD. It all adds to the notion that the sign
of Tara on the spine of a CD is a guarantor of music in a class of its
own. Nevertheless, quality doesn't automatically equal global sales and
some markets, particularly America, have remained effectively out of reach
for a relatively small label like Tara.